Matt Winey: Defining the tea party — what it is and isn’t

Of course, the modern day tea party grew out of what happened Dec. 16, 1773, when a group of American colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor because of the "Tea Act" the British imposed on them.

A revolution began.

In the same spirit that flowed through these early American colonists, the American people of today are standing up to a government we are starting to fear.

The Boston Tea Party and the modern tea party movement have many things in common, but a comparison that stands out most to me is being misunderstood by those who are in government and many of the people in America at each respective time.

In 1773, the British called the early tea party "lawless," and I’m sure some of the early day colonists agreed.

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It’s much the same as you see the modern day tea party being called "racists, stupid or violent" as you are likely to hear from the lame stream media and from those who are in power in Washington, D.C., today.

But, I offer to you that these things were not true in 1773, nor are they true today.

Samuel Adams, a colonist of 1773, argued that the tea party of his time was "not the act of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest and the only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights."

To me, this statement fits today.

The tea party is millions of American people who are doing what we feel we have to do to bring back the freedoms and rights we have lost in recent history.

Let me give you some things the modern day tea party is not:

• We are not the Democratic Party.

• We are not the Republican Party.

• We are not a third party.

• We are not racist, violent or ignorant as some today have tried to make us out to be.

What are we then? Who are we?

We are the following:

• A people in support of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as set forth by our Founding Fathers.

• We are about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This happiness is not having all our needs and wants taken care of at the expense of the taxpayer, but taking the opportunities we are given to be gainfully employed, making a living for ourselves and our families, and to lead a rewarding and successful life.

This is the true "pursuit of happiness."

• We are about fiscal responsibility, the balancing of our local, state and federal budgets. We are about the end to the huge national debt we owe other countries around the world and which will be passed on to our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren if we do not do something to stop it now.

• We are about limited government, the same limited government that was hoped and fought for by those who went to war against the British and then formed this nation.

This limited government is responsible for protecting our basic human rights, the Bill of Rights. These rights are the rights given to us by the laws of nature, and of nature's God, and are not rights given to us by other men. This will not be or should not be a government that takes away these rights or abuses them. This is the same limited government that was set forth in our Constitution.

• We are about a trust in God. This is a God that is a being of higher power and principles than ourselves, and we need this supreme being to help bring back this nation to greatness.

The Tea Party is actually what a lot of people of this nation are, and that is American citizens who want our country back.